Philip DiGennaro and Ed Vergara of Withers Bergman LLP; Dawn Reshen-Doty, president of Benay Enterprises, Incand; and Christopher T. Raines, CPA at Raines & Gargan CPAs, P.C. were the panel members at the

Chris Raines and Dawn Reshen-Doty provided insight to help foreign entrepreneurs who want to set up shop in the U.S. plan for the transition at the Withers Bergman inaugural 'Boot Camp for the Inbound Foreign Entrepreneur" on Thursday, May 8, 2014 at the Delamar Greenwich Harbor Hotel in Greenwich, Conn. less

Chris Raines and Dawn Reshen-Doty provided insight to help foreign entrepreneurs who want to set up shop in the U.S. plan for the transition at the Withers Bergman inaugural 'Boot Camp for the Inbound Foreign ... more

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Greenwich law firm holds "boot camp" for expat entrepreneurs

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If you ask Philip DiGennaro, he'll tell you almost anyone who works with international entrepreneurs here will have a similar war story.

"The entrepreneur acts first, and then asks questions later," he says. "That creates challenges. Most of the time they can live with the consequences, but it requires work."

That clean-up work -- be it over taxes, employment issues, or the name affixed to a piece of property purchased -- often falls to the likes of DiGennaro, a partner at international law firm Withers Bergman, which has a Greenwich office at 660 Steamboat Road.

In fact, the phenomenon is so prevalent that it was front and center Thursday morning at Withers Bergman's breakfast networking event at the Delamar Greenwich Harbor Hotel.

Typically, the Withers Bergman breakfast events -- which occur about eight to 10 times a year -- feature a client or friend of the firm as a guest speaker on a given topic related to entrepreneurship.

Not so, Thursday. This month explored the complex array of legal, accounting and business management decisions that face foreign entrepreneurs when they are establishing a presence in the U.S. To gain a wealth of experiences to draw from, DiGennaro decided to put together a four-person panel, which included Dawn Reshen-Doty, president of Benay Enterprises; Christopher Raines, CPA at Raines & Gargan; Edward Vergara, partner at Withers Bergman in the tax group; and DiGennaro himself.

About 30 people were in attendance, DiGennaro said, the majority of them either living or working in Greenwich.

"They were all very active listeners. They were very interested. They all had war stories of their own to share, and we found a lot of similar experiences," he said. "It was very much a conversation, which is what we try to do."

One discussion point: The whole world of business starters seems to have set its sights on the U.S., and the Northeast particularly. That includes entrepreneurs from Russia, China, Latin America, Asia, the U.K. and Europe, DiGennaro said. It includes firms in fields like technology, hospitality, apparel, fashion and real estate.

Such "inbound" entrepreneurs, DiGennaro said, are often high-net worth individuals or high-net-worth families. "They're truly citizens of the world," he said. "There are no borders anymore."

There are still, however, very different rules and regulations governing this land compared to others. Which is exactly the sort of thing fast-moving foreign business leaders often forget -- which is why the panel was taking place Thursday morning.

"It makes our skin crawl," DiGennaro said with a laugh. "But it's par for the course lots of the time."